Elke Napokoj

Practice Areas

Elke Napokoj is partner and co-head of the Corporate/M&A practice group. She specialises in national and international M&A transactions, corporate law, restructurings, private equity and capital markets. She advises strategic and financial investors across a range of industry sectors and has over 20 years of professional experience in corporate transactions, particularly in the pharmaceutical and life sciences, aviation, banking, insurance, energy and industrial sectors.

Career

Elke Napokoj graduated from the University of Vienna in 1999 (Dr.iur.) and holds an LL.M. in banking and financial law from King’s College London. In 2018, Elke Napokoj completed an Excellence Programme for Supervisory Boards at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. She has been a Partner at bpv Huegel since 2007 and co-head of the corporate M&A practice group.

Professional Memberships

• Vice-President of the Association for Corporate Growth, Austrian Chapter

• Member of the Advisory Board of the Austrian Association of Company Law (GVÖ)

• International Bar Association

• Vienna Bar Association

• King’s College London Alumni Association

• VGR Scientific Association for Corporate and Company Law

• International Women´s Forum

Publications

• Practical Guide to Venture-Capital-Finanzing, together with M. Pelinka (2023)

• Commentary on the Austrian Stock Corporation Act, together with H. Foglar-Deinhardstein and M. Pelinka (2020)

• Strategies to avoid disputes when drafting agreements in Handbook on Shareholders Disputes together with M. Pelinka (2020)

• Practical handbook on demerger, 2nd edition, (2015)

Personal

Chambers & Partners (2021 edition) lists Elke Napokoj as top-ranked lawyer; Clients say: “She is responsive, quick and very good at putting herself in the client’s shoes.”

Work Highlights

• Dutch Specialist Group International B.V. on the establishment of STAR Stadlmann GmbH and the acquisition of the labour leasing division of Stadlmann Tec GmbH.

• German Cloudflight Group on the acquisition of the Austrian mobile agreements GmbH, a company in the field of consulting for digital strategy and business model development

• Voyageurs du Monde (France) on the acquisition of a majority stake in the Austrian Eurofun Group, a company with shareholdings in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and France.

• Microsoft Venture Fund M12 and Point72 Ventures on their $20M funding in Blackshark.ai, the creator of first semantic 3D digital twin of the entire Earth

• German Würth Group in the acquisition of the Upper Austrian C.I.C.M.P. Vertriebs-GmbH, a leading company focusing on hydraulic connection technology and the assembly of hydraulic hoses.

• Zeus Packaging Group Limited on the acquisition of the Petruzalek Group and 11 subsidiaries of Petruzalek in the CEE region.

• International Aviation Group and Vueling Airlines on the offer to acquire Niki Luftfahrt GmbH and in connection with the formation of Level Airlines in Austria

Languages Spoken

German, English

Education

Awards